World Twenty20: England must get to grips with spin or defence of world crown is doomed

England bottomed out during victory over New Zealand but, before the defending
champions can even contemplate entering the World Twenty20 semi-finals,
their batsmen have to play spin — and specifically start their innings
against spin — vastly better than they have so far.

None of the established Test-playing countries has such a thin spin-bowling tradition as New Zealand. Yet their two main spinners, Daniel Vettori and Nathan McCullum, still managed to bowl their eight overs for 42 runs — and to dismiss both of England’s opening batsmen with the aid of ill-calculated shots.

Moreover, New Zealand’s spinners — their part-timer Rob Nicol hardly merits the description — were straightforward and orthodox. Tomorrow evening when England play Sri Lanka in their final Super Eight match, they are liable to find all of the host nation’s spinners to be either mysterious or mystifying.

When England are confronted with an orthodox spinner who only turns one way, their right-handed batsmen are confident enough to go down the pitch.

As soon as a both-ways spinner like Sri Lanka’s Ajantha Mendis comes on, especially with a white ball under lights, a considerable proportion of England’s strokes are indistinguishable from a stab in the dark.

Monday’s deciding fixture for England will be the second of the day, under lights, when the ball skids on. They have not been alone here in being troubled by spinners — Pakistan’s long-standing fallibility against left-arm spin was manifested when two of their batsmen were stumped off Robin Peterson’s first three balls for South Africa — but the turning, skidding, Mendis will surely puzzle England’s batsmen just as much as he did against West Indies yesterday, when he took two for 12 from four overs.

All of Craig Kieswetter, Jos Buttler and Jonny Bairstow — half of England’s top six – have still to prove their credentials against spin here. Which makes tomorrow’s fixture a high hurdle before England can think of returning to Colombo for the semi-finals, where pitches turn more than at Pallekele.

Kieswetter has faced eight balls of spin, and been dismissed twice in scoring six runs. He has had a poor time with the bat altogether in Sri Lanka — his keeping competent until he missed the simplest of run-outs against New Zealand — and in six innings (two in warm-up matches) has only progressed past 10 once.

If Kieswetter does play tomorrow, rather than Bairstow keeping wicket, one change at least has to be made, so that he does not take first strike. In prime form Kieswetter tends to block or blast it; when out of form it is far more often the former, which heaps pressure on Alex Hales, who is even less experienced than himself.

England have now beaten the weakest of the eight teams in this tournament: that, so far, is all.

Through being the current champions, if nothing else, they have deserved the luck of being in the weaker of the two Super Eight groups, but euphoria over their first win — other than against Afghanistan — should not cloud the fact that the group containing Australia, India, Pakistan and South Africa is distinctly stronger.

Australia walloped India, who walloped England in the qualifying round: that is how much stronger the Colombo group is than Kandy’s.

The four teams that won the qualifying rounds ended up in Colombo, in Group 2, and it is pretty safe to say that England would have no chance of retaining their title if they had landed there.

Australia’s opening pair of David Warner and Shane Watson have further embellished their reputation as the most productive partnership in the brief history of Twenty20 internationals. Watson, blessed with an all-rounder’s confidence and a murderous pull against spinners, has hit 164 runs off 96 balls, Warner 117 off 78 balls, and together they have scored 18 sixes — one ball in ten disappearing over the ‘perimeter branding’ as the boundary rope is called.

But Australia have been winning all too easily. The two Ws – Warner and Watson — have been so dominant that nobody else has got going: Mike Hussey is next with 38 runs. Just as West Indies are overdependent on Chris Gayle, and Sri Lanka on their top three batsmen, so are Australia on their openers.

Nobody would accuse England of being overdependent on their opening batsmen, although Hales batted admirably against West Indies until he ran out of energy. (Why doesn’t a captain tell a batsman to ‘retire out’ if he is completely drained and his team have wickets in hand?).

But while England’s supporters, in a hot stadium on a sultry night, are grateful for every breath of air they can get, they would rather the air-conditioning was not the result of their batsmen, faced with mystery spinners, playing a multitude of air-shots, as they have to date.